Technology Lab —

Case closed: the Windows Vista DVD hologram mystery

Two days ago, a Spanish blogger discovered something strange in the Windows …

Over the last few days, the Internet has been abuzz with the discovery of three mysterious men in the hologram of the Windows Vista Business DVD. The image was first discovered by a Spanish blogger who captured the evidence with his Nikon 5700. As word spread around the web, many people contacted Microsoft to get to the bottom of the story. However, the company's public relations department refused to comment on the strange image.

While non-believers wrote the picture off as a Photoshop job, many formulated their own conspiracy theories. One Engadget reader wrote, "I'm fairly certain those guys in the holo developed some kind of awesome BBQ sauce or a dry rub that the MS folks really dug." Another person on Neowin's forums jested, "It's the Vista Police!" As it turns out, that Neowin reader had the right idea—yesterday Microsoft admitted that there was in fact a photograph of three men in the hologram.

According to Nick White of the Windows Vista Team Blog, the image is just one of many used to make counterfeiting Vista DVDs more difficult.

The photo displays members of the team who worked on the Windows Vista DVD hologram design. Microsoft’s Anti-Piracy Team designed a counterfeit-resistant digital "watermark" for the non-encoded surface of Windows Vista DVDs. The photo in question is only one of multiple images contained in the hologram design, all of whose inclusion serves to make it more difficult to replicate a Windows Vista DVD. The other images are of old master works of art that are in the public domain.

White continues on saying that, although the image is posted across the Internet, the DVDs and their packaging contain several other measures which help prevent counterfeiting. As holographic designs are already difficult to replicate, including obscure images in them adds yet another layer of security. "These security measures were never intended to be impossible to find, but rather difficult to reproduce."

If you were readying your Vista hologram conspiracy theory for Conspiracy Planet, this is probably disappointing news. Still, there has to be other secrets embedded in the DVDs. Maybe there's a hidden message in the Windows logo, or maybe there's something about the DVD's color. Just keep looking.